Assessment of urban surface performance of open spaces with multi-criteria decision-making method

Abstract

The research presents a multi-criteria decision-making method that focuses on evaluating spatial performance by considering all areas without roads or structural elements as “urban surfaces”. In this context, the Seyyid Ömer neighbourhood in Istanbul’s Fatih district, as the study area, was discussed in detail in terms of physical, ecological, and social criteria and their sub-criteria. While the physical criteria include the size of each area and enclosure; the ecological criteria were studied with permeability rates and the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) value, which measures unit area through the amount of chlorophyll. In addition, the type of property and land use in the urban context, which are the main factors for citizens’ interaction with open spaces, were included as sub-criteria under the main social criterion. The relationships between the identified criteria and the open space typologies in the neighbourhood were converted into an index using the analytical network process (ANP) to measure the urban surface performance. The developed index indicated that some urban voids stand out even more than the important ones and have greater potential than urban parks such as Çukur Bostan in terms of social and vegetation qualities. As a result of the research, a map of the importance level was created to illustrate the potential areas for improving the urban ecological performance. Then, various pocket parks such as Şelaleli Park and Skate Park and urban voids regarding their physical, ecological and social values were extracted as potential urban open spaces. With this structure, the research proposes a multi-criteria index that can be used to evaluate the potential of urban surfaces by putting them on a multi-dimensional and computable scale.